NBWW post

How does the built environment–whether fictitious or entirely founded in reality–impact how we experience and process film? From lesser-known indies to blockbuster movies, the ways in which architecture and the built environment inform everything from scene and setting, to dialogue and character development has far-reaching effects on the audience’s cinematic experience. Below, a roundup of everything from recent releases to classic cinephile favorites uncovers the myriad ways in which film utilizes architecture as a means of achieving a more authentic and all-encompassing form of storytelling.

An unrecognizable Los Angeles skyline in “Blade Runner 2049.”

1. Blade Runner 2049 (2017), directed by Denis Villeneuve

Villeneuve’s sequel to the original 1982 neo-noir sci-fi classic transforms Ridley Scott’s eerie vision of future Los Angeles into an even more dire, environmentally-ravaged megalopolis. As the movie journeys across desolate landscapes and unfamiliar, crowded cityscapes, closer inspection renders Villeneuve’s vision perhaps not entirely implausible. From nods to brutalist and modernist-style architecture, to the marriage of Eastern and Western-style iconography, Villeneuve’s richly layered landscape imbues the fictitious narrative with an underlying sense of familiarity. In an increasingly globalizing world, who’s to say future cities won’t evolve to be as aesthetically varied and physically sprawling?